Is fTPM affects CPU performance?

[northernosprey]

First time to ask here after asking on few forums before.

 

As Windows 11 start to requires TPM (at least fTPM), we should enable TPM in order to able installing Windows 11.

 

But when I ask my friend to turn on fTPM on his PC in order to get Windows 11 support, he don't want it as it affect performance. He said the point is that security features can sacrifice CPU performance just like DRM in video games, he give me an example from AC: Odyssey both with (Uplay version) and without DRM (GOG version) comparison and the result is AC: Odyssey with DRM has FPS reduction up to 20% compared with GOG version that without DRM.

 

So the question is, does enabling fTPM from CPU sacrifice performance just like DRM or not like Meltdown or Spectre mitigations does? If doesn't, explain why while fTPM works on CPU level? But why DRM affects performance?

 

Hope you can explain that so my friend can trust fTPM just like trust the vaccine, sorry for my bad English. Thanks!

[Levent]

Nope. I dont think your friend has any idea on what TPM is. Here is a very simple explanation.

[jaslion]

There simply is no performance difference.

 

It's like adding food colouring to water. It's still water but you added green so now it is green water. Nothing changed part from the colour.

 

Here nothing changes part from you have the option to encrypt your drive.

[SorryBella]

11 minutes ago, Levent said:

I dont think your friend has any idea on what TPM is.

Or just wanna show a TIL in a wrong way, on what is fundamentally a fucking crappy DRM. Fuck Denuvo.

 

And no, TPMs are just extra module you turn on, not a software checks that are always gonna run in the background during tasks, like DRM.

[jaslion]

15 minutes ago, SorryClaire said:

Or just wanna show a TIL in a wrong way, on what is fundamentally a fucking crappy DRM. Fuck Denuvo.

 

And no, TPMs are just extra module you turn on, not a software checks that are always gonna run in the background during tasks, like DRM.

Ah Denuvo the make game run worse software. Love it when the pirates can remove it from a game and then suddenly that game runs massively better (looking at you assassins creed).

[SorryBella]

1 minute ago, jaslion said:

Love it when the pirates can remove it from a game and then suddenly that game runs massively better (looking at you assassins creed).

I think that looks so much paler in comparison to the fact that pirates nowadays can unlock the DRM WEEKS before the game is even in the public hands. Any publisher still using it is really just beyond me now.

[jaslion]

3 minutes ago, SorryClaire said:

I think that looks so much paler in comparison to the fact that pirates nowadays can unlock the DRM WEEKS before the game is even in the public hands. Any publisher still using it is really just beyond me now.

Like here is a open beta or whatever and boom drm unlocked. Then when the full game launches you have a day one crack of what is basically the better version if it is an offline game.

 

Another thing is that if the game can have private servers and whatnot you often get multiplayer games that are a lot more fun playing the cracked version because you can skip the micro transactions and whatnot (looking at pre blizzard wow classic).

[mariushm]

The modern processors have a built in "supervisor" core, something very lightweight and basic, often ARM based,  separate from the normal cores ... that core can also replicate the functionality of a regular TPM module.

This supervisor core has its own separate memory inside the cpu, its own region of computer ram it can reserve and so on... 

 

Games are slower with DRM because there's a separate application (The Denuvo DRM) constantly checking what other applications are running while you game, and blocking applications that could inspect the game or the Denuvo protection from starting as you game.

Also, in order to prevent from being "hacked" or make it much harder for people to analyze games and figure out what is denuvo and what is proper game in order to remove the protection from the game, the Denuvo protection intentionally adds code to the game that basically does nothing, but makes a person investigating the game spend hours following trails that go nowhere, or go to loops that do nothing.

Even though those bits of code do nothing, they still use some CPU time and they can fill caches inside the processor which may otherwise be used by the actual game, so all these "anti-tempering" and "extend life of the DRM scheme by inserting crap in game" things have the side effect of making a game slower.

 

The game developers mostly care about those first few weeks after the game is released, to keep the game not pirated while the game is "hot" and people buy it.

During that peak , they're willing to sacrifice some performance and even get some less positive reviews, as long as the game meets the minimum number of sales they predicted.

After that peak of sales, game developers often silently remove or deactivate such protection through patches or updates to the game, leaving just the more basic Steam or Origin or whatever protections.

 

 

Think of TPM  as a sort of container of  passwords and a generator of very unique and random passwords and a unique number - each TPM module has a uniquer number imprinted on it, that no other tpm module will have it. Just the same, each processor has an internal unique id, a signature, and that fTPM feature and the supervisor core inside the CPU can use that as a unique identifier, and the supervisor core can generate and store passwords just like a true TPM module would.

 

Microsoft will probably use this module to store unique passwords or encryption keys, for example if you use the Xbox features they'll probably encrypt everything you do, so people wouldn't be able to copy the saved games from you to other computers, and also to prevent you from editing or hacking saved games (you could edit a saved game so that when a game on xbox loads the saved game, the game crashes and during that crash you may gain access to the xbox operating system or whatever) 

 

They'll probably also want to use these encryption keys to lock various movies or games you download from their store to your computer, a sort of one time license key to view, and if somehow someone copies the file to another computer, they can't watch it or use it because it's encrypted and the key is not present in their own computer's tpm module.